South Beach down on AFC Pro Bowl team

Miami — The eagle lands, I go to the wrong rental-car center, take the shuttle back to the terminal, go to the correct rental car center, jump in the car, and with the sun setting _ a little later in the day here than back there, it seems _ I drive not to my Fort Lauderdale hotel, but to South Beach.

I jog past a circle of eight to 10 guys. They look to be in their mid-20s.

I’m sure more Pro Bowl sarcasm was spoken on the shores of the Atlantic, but at last, my 10-minute-mile pace took me out of hearing distance.

I give commissioner Roger Goodell credit for trying to find ways to make the NFL’s all-star game entertaining. But moving the event from the week after the Super Bowl, to the week before, and from Hawaii to the same site of the Super Bowl isn’t the answer.

There is no answer. Not with football’s inherent injury-risk factor there’s not. And clearly the star players weren’t exactly willing to play through pain for a trip to Miami. Garrard is the AFC’s No. 8 quarterback. Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer turned down the chance to play because of injury, and Peyton Manning can’t play because he’s in the Super Bowl. That’s five down. Matt Schaub, Vince Young and Garrard accepted their invitations by default.

In all, 29 Pro Bowlers had to be replaced. This isn’t an all star game. It’s a bunch of guys getting together for a scrimmage.

Nicki Jhabvala is a Broncos beat writer for The Denver Post. She was previously the digital news editor for sports. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor. She also spent two years as a home page editor at the New York Times.